What is Aleppo?

A leppo is what moth and butterfly enthusiasts call something they can’t identify.

It is a mess. There are so many disparate interests. Split the country? Put something in the water so they all get along? Leave them to the dogs to fight it out? I don’t see a good answer.

Oh boy :D

As for the refugees, it’s quite a tough question. On one hand, these people deserve help. I have met many saying they should stay and “fight for their country”, but I understand the will to run away. War is a fight or flight situation. If you can’t fight, you flight. There is nothing to be ashamed in wanting to keep your head on your shoulders and get your family in a safer place. I actually support countries that are willing to help these people.

There is a problem, though. First of all, the problem is in the refugees who are not refugees at all. There is a huge number of people who blend in and act like refugees, but in fact come from Afghanistan, Iran or other places who are not in a war at all. Their goal is actually simply moving to a richer country, especially if that country has a system that would provide you house and/or financial security, despite not knowing the language and having no education to help the country you live in instead of being the county’s permanent guest.
In my opinion, these people are a problem. A huge one. They come to live like bedouins, but have nothing in return to offer to the country that takes them in.
People mix the two, thinking that all refugees are parasites who come to destroy Europe. More on that later.

The second problem is another, far more dangerous, well organized group that uses the refugee situation. ISIS.
ISIS have mentioned that one of their strategies is to blend in with the refugees and “invade” Europe that way. There have been some cases of police identifying some of the refugees being the members of the ISIS or at lest connected with them.

The third problem is the media. Attacks in France, Germany, Turkey etc have been used for a lot of things, most of those being creating an agenda against refugees and Islam. Not one person mentioned that these people were not immigrants at all, but Arabs living in France their whole lives. (still ISIS members, though). The boy who attacked people in Germany was an Iranian born in Germany. Attackers in Belgium were their people. The whole situation makes a very grim situation for people who live in Europe and have nothing to do with ISIS nor any other terrorist group, but still happen to be Muslims, or simply Arabian.

Solution? Huh, is there any?....

My “suggestion” is that there should be some sort of a system that would identify people who come from places that are not in war and not let them in. It’s unfortunate that you are poor and want to live a better life, but your life is not in danger. This is an emergency situation and cruelty is unavoidable. In my opinion, this would lower the number of people coming to Europe. Has anyone ever wondered how come so many people come from a country so small as Syria?

Another thing is that Europe in total should join in helping. So far, all the refugees are running to Germany, which puts quite a pressure on the country, If every country, or at least half of the countries in Europe decided to “share” the refugees and help with taking care of them, the pressure would be way lower. Combine that with the first suggestion and the problem may turn significantly easier to deal with.

Identifying the ISIS members among refugees as soon as possible is very important as well.

The other “solution” is to eliminate the cause of the problem itself, which is aiding Syria to get out of the war and to take ISIS down, as soon as possible.

Taking ISIS down may be a subject Muslims should deal with too, since it is also a huge religious issue as well as political, but that is another issue.

That is my “suggestion”. I may be wrong and misinformed af.

Peace!

It could be any of a number of things:

Half lion half hippo.

Female gay hippopotamus

Part of the body that gets suctioned to lose weight (Alepposuction)

Thanks for the answers so far. Watching this live this morning…aside from the obvious WTH moment of Gary’s answer or lack there of…it struck me as questions like this IMO are in a way unfair. No matter what answer he or Trump or Hillary could give to what to do with Allepo…is nothing more than patronizing the voters they seek to gain. If there was a solution there, after 4 years of turmoil there, think we would have done it by now. Maybe Gary is right….we haven’t tried holding Russia’s hand yet…what harm would it do to try.~

In the wake of 9/11 and the drum beat of weapons of mass destruction it seemed obvious to pretty much everyone that we go kick some ass in Iraq and look how that turned out. Now Trump and Hillary are being raked over the coals for their support of the Iraq war. Now we expect Gary, Donald and Hillary to get out their crystal balls and tell us live on TV today what will they do to solve the problems in Allepo? Seriously? We are talking the Middle East where they have been chopping off each other heads for thousands of years and how arrogant of us to think we can begin to teach them to all get along.

It is the latest mainstream media gotcha tactic.

MSNBC (sigh).

They were so unprepared for Johnson’s honest reply. I would have laughed if it wasn’t so sad and disconcerting.

The mainstream media drinks their own Kool-Aid so deeply they simply cannot understand anything but the status quo.

Johnson, like a Libertarian should, has his priorities set on straightening out the United States first.

@SecondHandStoke Can you explain why you feel this question was a “gotcha” tactic. I watched it happen live and the collective gasp at Gary asking “whats an aleppo” with the stunned silence that followed seemed far removed from a gotcha reaction. I feel that if this was indeed a pre-meditated gotcha attempt their reactions would have been much different. Plus the ensuing discussions were centered around pure bewilderment with Gary’s followup answer explanation. Even Mika shook her head in disbelief and said she now has no other choice but to vote for Hillary.

I overall do agree with your Kool Aid comment on mainstream media…but for me Joe Scarborough was the one voice in the media whose opinions are his own, generally spot on and clearly not beholden to any mass media agenda. He is a conservative fish swimming against the MSNBC current and why he is so popular.

^ The “gotcha tactic” statement was my original response, intended to be glib and partially tongue in cheek.

After posting that I decided the OP, and Gary Johnson, deserved my serious feelings on the subject.

I simply forgot to remove my first response before it became to late to do so.

Okay, at the risk of, well…gettin the piss ripped outta me, what is a libertarian?
Coz from these shores it looks, sounds, smells & tastes like a fucking ignorant loser, am I close?

I’m Aleppo! Be Aleppo!

The country world needs more leppos!

Is this the colony in Papillon where McQueen took a ceegar from the mouth of aleppo & chewed on it nervously?

@ucme

An American Libertarian is a person that believes, first and foremost, that the Federal government’s jurisdiction only includes interstate matters: issues and responsibilities that simply cannot be handled by the states.

Examples are national defense, air travel, interstate communications, etc.

They also believe that government’s intrusion into matters of personal choice should be held to the greatest practical minimum.

For example, what I do with, or put into my body, as long as it doesn’t directly affect someone else, is my own business.

Ideally, Libertarianism takes the best from both conservative and liberal ideals.

For example, a near paradise where government is economically conservative yet socially liberal, a world where I’m not burdened by a glut of taxes while sucking as much dick as I please, stoned as shit, without the worry of arrest.

Far too many people make the mistake of assuming that Libertarians are hyperconservatives. They couldn’t be more wrong.

There is no catch, but there is a cost. The cost is personal responsibility.

Some people are very adverse to this idea of individual responsibility. What do you suppose that says about them?

I wonder how many people mocking Johnson for not knowing what Aleppo is actually knew themselves before this. Of course it’s easy for anyone to claim, after the fact, that they totally knew. I can just picture the scene playing out in a million living rooms across the land -

“Wha’? Aleppo? What ‘da fuck izzat?”

pick up smartphone > wikipedia.org > search “aleppo”

*Ha! Geeze Gary Johnson! Yous so stoopid! I can’t believe you didn’t know that!”

That said, I do find it a bit surprising that someone seeking the office of president would not be more informed about the biggest refugee crisis the world is currently facing (and a situation that’s a potential political landmine for candidates). But hey, I’m sure Gary’s still got the stoner vote (at least inasmuch as stoners can bother to get off the couch and vote).

Cheers for that @SecondHandStoke & I guess it says this about them baaaaaaaa baaaaaaa

@ucme Libertarians are anything but Sheeple, to be a card carrying Libertarian you have to have the conviction to break rank with the Republicans or Democrats who IMO would better fit the Sheeple moniker. More often than not, Libertarians are intelligent, informed and have the ability to have an informed original thought…though from Gary’s interview this morning he clearly did not appear informed.

@Cruiser If you look again you should see that the sheep appear to be the conservatives & liberals, those afraid to hold an original thought & break free from tired status quo…is what I meant.
It has to be said though, this Johnson dude didn’t exactly cover himself in glory

Before now I thought aleppo was dog food. Alpo. Now I know that it is the capital city of Seria.

@ucme I am an independent voter here and this was my first look at him live on TV today and I was hoping Gary would rise in the polls enough to qualify for the debates. No chance of that now as all he will be doing at the debate is valet parking cars.

@RedDeerGuy1
*Syria unless that was intentional

@Sneki95 Syria thanks. I’ll go with it.

Hands up everyone who hasn’t had a brain fart.

At least Gary Johnson didn’t attack the host and dodge the question like Trump would.

Have not heard the full interview. Would like to know the previous questions. Did this come from out of the blue? Was it a followup question about the Middle East fiasco?

From the way it was asked, “What would you do, if you were elected, about Aleppo?” it could have been anything from another rogue drug company to a childhood disease to one of the Marx brothers.

On one hand it may seem like an unfair question. You and I may not know the answer off the top of our heads but you and I aren’t applying for the job of leader of the free world. I have an expectation that the person who aspires to that particular job be an expert in international affairs.

Yeah. The Syrian conflict is kinda relevant. ~

Politicians are usually disconnected from reality, so this doesn’t surprise me. But he’s really got his head up his ass.

@MrGrimm888 I wouldn’t say that. If you listen to his response once he realized what was being asked it is a cogent and relevant answer..

That was an astonishing gaffe.

@rojo I would respectfully disagree with you as Gary’s followup answer was anything but “cogent and relative…“It’s just a mess” is a descriptor I use to describe my kids bed rooms not a violent conflict in a region that not only displaces hundreds of thousands of civilians but kills, rapes pillages similar amounts of people in the process.

I felt like someone started telling him in his earset what it was, then he clicked out a brief, bullshit answer.

It’s a LOT more complicated than holding hands with Russia.

He made a mole hill out of a mountain.

I’d figure the media would try to find a reason to belittle and discredit Johnson (though personally I’d prefer his running mate Weld to be the front runner). My answer is why does it matter? I’m still supporting him because he was an effective governor of New Mexico, has walked the walk concerning his libertarian views and is by far the best candidate to protect our civil liberties (in my opinion).

Seriously, after what I’ve seen other politicians say publicly, both past and present, to me his lack of knowledge about Syria is irrelevant to me. Look at all of the far crazier things both Trump and Clinton have said. At least Johnson did not say “I know more about ISIS th-than the generals do, beLIEve me”.

I also do not think it’s fair to use the mess of undeveloped cultures engaged in perpetual conflict as a reason to belittle a political candidate, not to mention Johnson would be inheriting the mess of previous administrations’ neoconservative foreign policies. These Islamic cultures need to be willing to change themselves, their hypermasculine cultures and evolve instead of blaming the infidel west for their problems. Just as fundamental Christianity has held back progress in the deep south, fundamental Islam has held back progress in the middle east.

Sorry if this comes off as being unempathetic, but it’s how I feel about an area of the world that continues to be an endless troublezone with no end in sight. I bet you Jonhson can at least spell Aleppo. So foreign policy is not Johnson’s strong point; was foreign policy the strong points of previous presidents who’ve gotten us into conflicts that should had never been? I’ve seen the mess foreign policy ‘experts’ have created in the past: Vietnam, the Shah of Iran, the contras, Operation Iraqi Freedom, etc.

I just saw a news clip with him sticking his tongue out during an interview. Really leaving it out, not just a quick poke.

Then Chris Matthews asked him to name one world leader he respects and he could not name one. Not one.

I don’t know much about him but after reading the last two responses my guess is that he’s an isolationist. Even if I were to think that the isolationist “America First” approach were a valid one, I would still want a president who is an expert on international issues.

That is absolutely the correct attitude to have, @Judi. Look at how safe the world has become with the experts in charge. ~ ~

I think it’s been safer with Obama than it was with Bush!

^Agreed @Judi.